Casualties of War
by Heeroluva
Summary: John's life is divided into sections: Africa, Afghanistan, and Sherlock. Sherlock/John, John/OMC


Contains: Torture, War, Child Soldiers, HIV/AIDS, Original Character Death(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Angst, Asexuality, Hurt/ComfortThis is kind of a reactionary piece. I sometimes feel like people make light of John's past and forget that he was a soldier. PQO stands for Professionally Qualified Officers.

* * *

John didn't start medical school with the intention of joining the Army. That didn't come until years later. John had enjoyed his job, loved London, but he'd wanted to see the world. Doctors Without Borders had given him that opportunity.

As a surgeon they'd snatched him up, the application taking almost no time. They were delighted that he had no real location preference. Africa had been the most in need, so that's where he'd gone.

A week after his acceptance found John on a plane to a continent he knew almost nothing about.

* * *

Africa is hot and dry and far too bright. It's early March and already the temperatures have reached highs that John had never experienced during even the hottest of London summer days. The air is so thick during the day that it's difficult to breath. The nights see only moderately lower temperatures, but it's enough to cause all manners of bugs to swarm out from their daytime hiding places.

* * *

In Angola, John sees the damage landmines are capable of inflicting on a human body. The young boy bleeds out before John can even process the true magnitude of his injuries. His experience as a trauma surgeon had not prepared him for this. Nothing could have prepared him for this. More days than not John lost more than he saved, and many were far too young.

John made it four months before he requested a transfer.

* * *

Mozambique was supposed to be better. It wasn't. There were fewer landmines where he was stationed, but there was something else just as deadly. AIDS had never been so real.

It was there that John met Daniel and had a crisis of sexuality. In the end, John decided that life was too short to care about such trivialities.

Two months later Daniel cut himself on a piece of shrapnel he was removing from a patient. The sex ended, but they still remained close. Three months later when the test came back positive, Daniel returned to home in the United States. They promised to keep in touch, but never did.

* * *

Harry's upset that John misses Christmas. John loves his sister, but he can't spend one more holiday watching her drink herself to death. He's tried to help her, but she's a grown woman, and there's only so much he can do if she won't change herself.

He promises to call again soon. They both know it's a lie.

* * *

John's supervisors warn against leaving the camp and going out on his own, but sometimes he just needs to get away. He's not sure it's worth it though as each time there are new faces, new orphans, swarming, tugging on his clothes, begging for money, for food that he doesn't have. He tried the first few times, sharing his own rations, but it was never enough, and as much as it killed him, it was easier to give nothing, then give a little and see the disappointment, hunger, and soul-deep hopelessness on the faces of children that he couldn't help.

* * *

Two years later sees John in Sudan. After all the death he's experienced, John thought he'd have been used to it by now. He was wrong. It's different when he's the one taking the life instead of trying to save it. It's different when it's a boy, little more than a child, yet already war-hardened, holding a gun to his head. John hadn't meant for it to happen but the instant his blade had sunk into the boy's flesh, he'd known it was a fatal blow.

Years later he would still dream of the blood coating his fingers.

* * *

After that John went home to London. It was a spur of the moment thing, enlisting in the Army. They'd tried to talk him into joining as an officer, but he wasn't ready for that. Not yet. The training had been what John needed, a way to immerse himself with the physical and escape. At some point he'd stopped merely existing and had learned to live again. Afghanistan was a lot like Africa yet not. At least here they normally weren't fighting children.

There was a certain camaraderie that hadn't existed in Africa, a certain sense of freedom and purpose. Here they were actually trying to do something rather than just reacting to the effect and not addressing the cause. Odd as it may have sounded, it was on the battlefields of Afghanistan that John found himself.

It wasn't until later that John would admit that he liked the rush of adrenaline, the thrill of danger.

* * *

Army life in a warzone brought with it a number of complications. In Africa while John's job had often brought him to the front lines of conflicts, he did his best to stay out of them. Here there was no avoiding them and he played an active role of his.

For his first tour, John didn't sign up to be a doctor. He wasn't really sure why he did it. Even years later John couldn't give a reason for it. It wasn't as if John hadn't known what happened during wars, what soldiers did; he'd seen plenty of it already. However, he hadn't really thought it through, what it would mean for him.

Going from saving lives to taking them had been a shock. Even more so was how easily John was able to do it. It took so little effort to pull a trigger and fire, ending a life. It took so much more to save one. That had scared John for a bit, the ease of killing, but at least he could feel respite that he didn't take enjoyment from it. He was a soldier. It was a job, and he did it.

* * *

After his second tour of duty, John decided he was done running. It was time to take the Army up on their offer, and he finally took the PQO course and become an officer. There had been a number of recertifications and classes he had to go through, but stepping into the role of doctor again had been surprisingly simple. It was a home coming of sorts.

Life wasn't really all that different as an officer or a doctor in the Army, not that he'd expected it to be. It was still filled with blood, and death, and gunfire, and smoke, and scorching hot sands, but at least now he could help pick the pieces up. And with every life he saved, John thought that maybe, someday, he could forgive himself.

* * *

It was during his fourth voluntary tour of duty that the Army had seen fit to do a thorough psych evaluation on him. They'd seemed almost upset that he'd passed.

Not long into the tour, events conspired against him and brought an end to his time in the Army. John shouldn't have even been there, but the unit's regular medic was recovering from an injury, so John had stepped in. It happened so fast. They'd been pinned down and Riley had been bleeding out. Intel said there weren't supposed to be hostiles around especially so many or so armed, but it had been wrong.

Sykes called for backup, but they all knew they were too far for help to arrive in time. At least Riley died quickly. He couldn't say that about the rest of them. Captured, they'd been separated, confined to small cells with no contact with anyone but their captors. The silence was only broken by the screams of his men when they were being tortured. John's own screams joined the chorus as he refused to give up information. And slowly but surely the silence lengthened, and John's resolve wavered as he realized each longer span of time without the sound of screaming meant a death had occurred.

John wasn't sure how much time had passed, when finally the day came that there was no sound at all, and he realized it was his turn. As he was dragged stumbling to the usual room, John's spirits lifted momentarily as he saw Sykes. Relief turned to horror as he realized what they planned. The new tactic was horrible to behold, and John had no choice but to watch as they re-broke Syke's fingers, the horrific popping and grating of bone against bone surprisingly loud.

Sykes' eyes had been pleading, begging him to keep quiet, and John had bit his lips until they'd bled. When the door suddenly exploded, he wasn't sure which side was more surprised by what they saw. The rise of the gun had John throwing himself to the side, knocking Sykes' chair over, just in time to prevent his friend from taking a spray of bullets across the chest. The searing pain that exploded across his back, told John he hadn't been quite fast enough, though. Meeting Sykes' eyes before the pain overtook him John knew it was worth it. It had to be.

* * *

John wasn't so sure when he spent his days 'recovering' after his discharge, doing little more than twiddling his thumbs. The physical therapy was intense, but he looked forward to it as the pain gave him something to focus on, a means to forget everything. John dreaded the sessions with his therapist just as much as he anticipated the therapy. PTSD, she said. Psychosomatic limp, she said. If only she knew.

Africa tore his heart to pieces just as surely as Afghanistan bled him dry, but given the chance John wouldn't have changed either, both places having been such an integral part of his life that John couldn't even imagine who or where he'd be without them. Here in London, as much as John loved it, he didn't know his place in it anymore. Then he'd met a man…

* * *

Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, brilliant, infuriating, and exactly what John had needed. Everyone tried to put a label on it, on them. Just simply being wasn't enough. Sherlock laughed at John's annoyance, that he should have expected any different. John didn't need labels for what he had with Sherlock. Maybe no one understood it, but John didn't mind. Some things just weren't worth the effort to care about, and others, well... John just looked at Sherlock and grinned.

John wondered if it was odd to divide his life the way he did: childhood, adolescence, university, doctor, Africa, Afghanistan, and finally Sherlock. He couldn't imagine an after Sherlock, not now, not as he lived it. He was still a doctor, but somehow he found himself acting as a researcher, a scientist, a detective, whatever the case and Sherlock called for. The cases varied in danger, in difficulty, but the constant was that Sherlock solved them, and that John was there by his side.

In a roundabout way Sherlock taught John about forgiveness. So often the pettiness that led to crimes could be avoided if people just talked about things instead of resorting to violence. And Sherlock was one to talk, digging at things that no one wanted exposed, bowling through niceties that most people hid behind. Sherlock pushed and prodded, never letting up, and he got to John, _got_ John in a way no one else ever could.

* * *

With strangers Sherlock was crass and rude and far too blunt. It was little different with John, but as good an actor as Sherlock may have been at times, John knew him well enough to see right through it and at least knew he cared. There were instances when John wasn't okay, when the dreams of blood and sand stayed with him, when he needed his space, when he had to get away, and Sherlock didn't protest what he needed. During those times Sherlock didn't take it personally, didn't push. At other times, John was almost reluctant to let Sherlock out of his sight. Sherlock never had to ask because he already knew.

This wasn't the life that John had expected to have. Harry had laughed and welcomed him to the 'club' when he told her of his relationship with Sherlock, and some of the tension between them drained as she finally admitted her problem and sought help. The fact that he was constantly watched by the British government didn't bother him as much as John thought it should have.

When Sherlock tugged the newspaper from John's hands and settled himself across John's lap, John decided it didn't really matter. John was the happiest he'd ever been. They worked. This worked. That was all that mattered.


End file.
